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16 Sep 2017, 18:54

Hi guys,

I wanted to first thank all the contributors at gmatclub, as reading through your strategies and experiences has helped me tremendously. However my verbal seems to not have improved at all, and now I have 9 days left till my exam, I was hoping to gather some tips (if there is any).

A little bit of background: My goal is 710+ as I wanted to apply for Columbia's MS in Marketing Science. My undergrad GPA is embarrassingly low (3.19) so hoping to make up with high GMAT score and a kickass essay.

As you can see my verbal has been consistently weak, with the weakest being Sentence Correction, followed by Critical Reasoning.I'm really bad a grammar, having tried to understand grammatical structure and failed, I gave up and decided to go with the dummy no-strategy strategy: pick the option that sounds most right to me. (I know, I'm a amateur) And evidently it hasn't worked out so far.

What would you guys recommend to bump up verbal in a short period of time? Any study material or test strategies would be highly appreciated!

UPDATE:

I have taken the test and got 700, Q50 V33 - I had about 15 questions left when there was less than 15 minutes left. Yup, I ran out of time. And made a silly mistake: as I guessed the answer for what I thought was the last question when there was 3 seconds left, I realized there was ANOTHER question. So yes, I didn't finish.

From the CATs I have done before the actual test I usually had enough time for verbal but not enough time for Quant. I found the actual test's Quant extremely easy, I had 8 minutes left when I finished! But I spent way too much time upfront for Verbal and inevitably ended up running out of time. Again, spent too much time on SC questions, couldn't decide between two options, eventually guessed one (and based on my V scored - probably guessed wrong).

My plan is to go over all verbal questions in OG and GmatPrep. Hopefully I'll break 710 when I test again in 25 days!!!!

Last edited by agentcooper on 28 Sep 2017, 10:25, edited 1 time in total.

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16 Sep 2017, 19:08

1

This post receivedKUDOS

agentcooper wrote:

Hi guys,

I wanted to first thank all the contributors at gmatclub, as reading through your strategies and experiences has helped me tremendously. However my verbal seems to not have improved at all, and now I have 9 days left till my exam, I was hoping to gather some tips (if there is any).

A little bit of background: My goal is 710+ as I wanted to apply for Columbia's MS in Marketing Science. My undergrad GPA is embarrassingly low (3.19) so hoping to make up with high GMAT score and a kickass essay.

As you can see my verbal has been consistently weak, with the weakest being Sentence Correction, followed by Critical Reasoning.I'm really bad a grammar, having tried to understand grammatical structure and failed, I gave up and decided to go with the dummy no-strategy strategy: pick the option that sounds most right to me. (I know, I'm a amateur) And evidently it hasn't worked out so far.

What would you guys recommend to bump up verbal in a short period of time? Any study material or test strategies would be highly appreciated!

9 Days is too less period for anything, but I can suggest you to go through Thursday with Ron's Video.

Reco for SC: Focus on meaning, I reckon you would already know the rule. But meaning will add more depth to your knowledge. Understand the meaning before plugging in the rules.

Reco for CR: Pre-think, no matter what. Try to identify the conclusion and rethink what could strengthen , or weaken before jumping onto the answers.

Reco for RC: Don't get held with details while reading through RC. At the end of each para, tell yourself in your native language what is the summary of that para in one sentence. I guess that summary will act as a map to get you through the RC questions.

I guess you are already good with Quant. But do let me know if you need any input there. Happy to help.

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16 Sep 2017, 21:15

agentcooper wrote:

Hi guys,

I wanted to first thank all the contributors at gmatclub, as reading through your strategies and experiences has helped me tremendously. However my verbal seems to not have improved at all, and now I have 9 days left till my exam, I was hoping to gather some tips (if there is any).

A little bit of background: My goal is 710+ as I wanted to apply for Columbia's MS in Marketing Science. My undergrad GPA is embarrassingly low (3.19) so hoping to make up with high GMAT score and a kickass essay.

As you can see my verbal has been consistently weak, with the weakest being Sentence Correction, followed by Critical Reasoning.I'm really bad a grammar, having tried to understand grammatical structure and failed, I gave up and decided to go with the dummy no-strategy strategy: pick the option that sounds most right to me. (I know, I'm a amateur) And evidently it hasn't worked out so far.

What would you guys recommend to bump up verbal in a short period of time? Any study material or test strategies would be highly appreciated!

For someone with a V38 (85%) on a GMATPrep, you seem to have a very low opinion of your ability to do well in verbal. Take another GMATPrep or two (get one of the exam packs) and see what you get on those tests.
_________________

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17 Sep 2017, 18:42

cheapthrills wrote:

agentcooper wrote:

Hi guys,

I wanted to first thank all the contributors at gmatclub, as reading through your strategies and experiences has helped me tremendously. However my verbal seems to not have improved at all, and now I have 9 days left till my exam, I was hoping to gather some tips (if there is any).

A little bit of background: My goal is 710+ as I wanted to apply for Columbia's MS in Marketing Science. My undergrad GPA is embarrassingly low (3.19) so hoping to make up with high GMAT score and a kickass essay.

As you can see my verbal has been consistently weak, with the weakest being Sentence Correction, followed by Critical Reasoning.I'm really bad a grammar, having tried to understand grammatical structure and failed, I gave up and decided to go with the dummy no-strategy strategy: pick the option that sounds most right to me. (I know, I'm a amateur) And evidently it hasn't worked out so far.

What would you guys recommend to bump up verbal in a short period of time? Any study material or test strategies would be highly appreciated!

9 Days is too less period for anything, but I can suggest you to go through Thursday with Ron's Video.

Reco for SC: Focus on meaning, I reckon you would already know the rule. But meaning will add more depth to your knowledge. Understand the meaning before plugging in the rules.

Reco for CR: Pre-think, no matter what. Try to identify the conclusion and rethink what could strengthen , or weaken before jumping onto the answers.

Reco for RC: Don't get held with details while reading through RC. At the end of each para, tell yourself in your native language what is the summary of that para in one sentence. I guess that summary will act as a map to get you through the RC questions.

I guess you are already good with Quant. But do let me know if you need any input there. Happy to help.

PS: I am no expert, Neither have I scored a Q51 nor V40+.

Cheapthrills - Thanks for the advice! I have also noticed that focusing on meaning helps eliminate 1-2 options on average. CR - I try to prephrase, but I almost never see an answer that resonates with my line of reasoning.

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17 Sep 2017, 18:47

AjiteshArun wrote:

agentcooper wrote:

Hi guys,

I wanted to first thank all the contributors at gmatclub, as reading through your strategies and experiences has helped me tremendously. However my verbal seems to not have improved at all, and now I have 9 days left till my exam, I was hoping to gather some tips (if there is any).

A little bit of background: My goal is 710+ as I wanted to apply for Columbia's MS in Marketing Science. My undergrad GPA is embarrassingly low (3.19) so hoping to make up with high GMAT score and a kickass essay.

As you can see my verbal has been consistently weak, with the weakest being Sentence Correction, followed by Critical Reasoning.I'm really bad a grammar, having tried to understand grammatical structure and failed, I gave up and decided to go with the dummy no-strategy strategy: pick the option that sounds most right to me. (I know, I'm a amateur) And evidently it hasn't worked out so far.

What would you guys recommend to bump up verbal in a short period of time? Any study material or test strategies would be highly appreciated!

For someone with a V38 (85%) on a GMATPrep, you seem to have a very low opinion of your ability to do well in verbal. Take another GMATPrep or two (get one of the exam packs) and see what you get on those tests.

Show Tags

28 Sep 2017, 10:26

UPDATE:

I have taken the test and got 700, Q50 V33 - I had about 15 questions left when there was less than 15 minutes left. Yup, I ran out of time. And made a silly mistake: as I guessed the answer for what I thought was the last question when there was 3 seconds left, I realized there was ANOTHER question. So yes, I didn't finish.

From the CATs I have done before the actual test I usually had enough time for verbal but not enough time for Quant. I found the actual test's Quant extremely easy, I had 8 minutes left when I finished! But I spent way too much time upfront for Verbal and inevitably ended up running out of time. Again, spent too much time on SC questions, couldn't decide between two options, eventually guessed one (and based on my V scored - probably guessed wrong).

My plan is to go over all verbal questions in OG and GmatPrep. Hopefully I'll break 710 when I test again in 25 days!!!!